All of us have been touched by cancer in some way, and if we haven’t, we, or someone we know and love will be diagnosed. Young, old, newborn babies. No one is exempt. So far this year, five of my friends have been diagnosed or have a recurrence of the cancer they were diagnosed with over ten years ago. Cancer is an epidemic with no boundaries and no rules. It robs us of our lives in cruel and relentless ways, and we’ve accepted it as a terrifying fact of life. Aside from adopting healthier lifestyle habits—that may or may not prevent it—we’re helpless to do anything else. Or are we?
What if there were revolutionary treatment protocols for your granddaughter so she could survive her cancer and grow up and have a family of her own? For your best friend, your husband, or for you? Significant, mind-blowing advances in cancer treatment are already here for thousands of cancer patients, but what if I told you a cure for cancer in our lifetime may not be as farfetched as it sounds?
Would you help make it a reality?
This coming Friday, August 15, at 8/7pm CST, is the ninth, biennial, televised Stand Up to Cancer (SU2C) fundraiser, and this year it’s in Nashville. I’m a supporter of SU2C, and August 15 holds a special significance for me. On that day, 21 years ago, I heard the words, “You have breast cancer,” and it changed my life forever.
I’ve been familiar with SU2C since 2008, when they contacted me and asked if I would help them promote their first multi-television network fundraiser. At the time, I had the Top Breast Cancer Blog, Breast Cancer Sisterhood, where I got to know the top cancer organizations, and which ones were the real deals and which ones were not.
Because they’ve changed the paradigms of cutting-edge cancer research in bold and dramatic ways, over the years, SU2C has continued to make cancer breakthroughs.
Sherry Lansing, Photograph by Jennifer Denton for 1010ParkPlace
In 2015, I visited with Sherry Lansing, one of the eight visionary women in media who co-founded SU2C, in her Los Angeles office. Often referred to as the most powerful woman in Hollywood, when she was no longer President of 20th Century Fox, and subsequently Chairman and CEO of Paramount Pictures, Sherry Lansing made it her full time job to raise money for SU2C. Sherry’s personable and tireless efforts have changed the culture of cancer research and brought new, accelerated and collaborative ways of thinking to the world’s top research scientists.
Do you or someone you know have breast, lung, colorectal, pancreatic, adult soft tissue sarcoma, melanoma, blood cancers, or childhood cancers? Because of SU2C, there is new hope for you and your loved ones.
That day in her office, Sherry told me about SU2C’s “Dream Teams,” researchers in different fields, who traditionally kept their work secret from one another but were coming together to work on the same cancer problems with the goal to deliver new and better treatments in a timelier manner, and they have. Over the years, here are just a few of the things SU2C has accomplished:
• Received FDA approval for more effective breast cancer and pancreatic cancer drugs
• Early-stage detection solution for pancreatic cancer
• Therapeutic cancer vaccines with positive results in clinical trials; personalized vaccines for melanoma and lung, colorectal, and pancreatic cancers can treat cancer, strengthen patients’ immune systems, and reduce recurrence.
• Immunotherapy treatment that reduced the risk of relapse by 43% for two of the most common types of soft tissue sarcoma in adults
• SU2C Catalyst Research Team’s clinical trial eliminated or shrunk melanoma tumors in 70% of patients. Melanoma is the fifth most common cancer in the U.S.
• Catalyst grants for a rare disease associated with blood cancers, and combinational targeting of oncogene-driven childhood cancer
• Improving Triple Negative breast cancer patient outcome with a personalized PARP inhibitor-based combination therapy, and collaborative progress in innovative pancreatic cancer treatment and advanced rectal cancer
• Innovative and advanced AI and machine learning tools in cancer research, diagnosis, and treatment
This year, Stand Up to Cancer is emphasizing their “strong conviction that funding early-stage detection is essential to defeating cancer” and they “believe it is achievable to reduce cancer deaths by 25% in five years and 50% in ten years.”
In 1987, my first husband, Philip Ray, was one of the first cancer patients to receive the experimental treatment that is now known as immunotherapy. Philip’s doctor was the revered Dr. Steve Rosenberg at the National Cancer Institute in Bethesda, Maryland. I’ve been the cancer caregiver, the cancer patient, and part of the cancer community, and there isn’t another research organization I would intrust my tax deductible dollars to because I know how much they’ve changed the face of cancer research.
Whether it’s today, tomorrow, August 15, the date of this year’s SU2C fundraiser, or after, I pray you’ll donate a little, or a lot, in honor of someone you know with cancer. I promise you, it will be one of the best things you’ll do all year.
Here is SU2C’s 2024 Annual Report, containing the different ways you can give and the answers to frequently asked questions such as: Is my donation secure; is it tax deductible; will I get a receipt; how do you get 10 bonus American Airlines AAdvantage miles for every dollar you give on a donation of $25 or more, even how you can donate real estate if that’s something you’d like to consider. Yes, that’s philanthropy, and you can be a philanthropist who makes a difference with your money.
Mark your calendars! Friday, August 15, at 8/7 Central time, to watch the Stand Up to Cancer Telecast on any of the major networks, and PLEASE JOIN ME AND DONATE!
